


Wolves

by TheOriginalSuki



Series: Jonsa: A Dream of Spring [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, PTSD Jon, Possessive Jon Snow, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-05-14 17:03:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19277641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOriginalSuki/pseuds/TheOriginalSuki
Summary: Perhaps Jon had a bit of the Targaryen madness in him after all.Jon returns to Winterfell, more wolf than man.***For Jonsa: A Dream of Spring festival, Day 2 and 3: Wolves, Winterfell, and Beyond the Wall





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zarahjoyce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarahjoyce/gifts).



 

Perhaps Jon had a bit of the Targaryen madness in him after all.

 

For nine months he wandered in the womb of winter  North of north.  Alone.  In the thick of exile there was no day, no light.  Night was a seamless blanket that gave no warmth.  He unlearned everything.  He shed all excess.  Nothing can be carried into the True North in wintertime but the will to live.  It took a punishing, merciless force to drive his trajectory across time, even more than space: to build day on top of day, when death would be a welcome detour.  But he had to keep moving.  If he stalled, the flames licked at his heels and promised to consume him.

 

And then he fell.

 

He was nothing; and then he was, plunged back into existence.  His senses muted.  The only thing he knew was what existed at the end of his fingertips.  What was there was soft and white and warm.  So warm.  Far too warm for the blinding landscape that was his waking nightmare, sprawling in every direction.  He started to slip back into sleep, but wet, sinewy softness was thrust at him; some raw flesh of fish or seal; his stomach gnawed, so he ate.

 

He ate and slept for a very long time.  And something kept him alive.

 

***

 

Red pinpricks in the white expanse; humid, panting breath; a white wolf.  A great albino direwolf, silent as a ghost.  Recognition pierced him through the curtain of ice.  Ghost.  The wolf's name was Ghost.

 

Jon was as an infant.  Blind and deaf and helpless.  He ate what food was brought to him, and turned toward warmth from wherever it came, and he slept.  Until one day -- one moment in the reel of night -- ripped.  Ghost got up and left.

 

_Follow_.  There was no thought, no decision.  He knew it, so it was.

 

Jon followed him.  The wolf headed south, picking paths across the ice desert so Jon could follow with little faltering.  When Jon could walk no more, sinking to his knees in the snow, the wolf doubled back and wrapped himself around him, and he slept.  Then they would get up and walk again.  

 

_Same_.  The wolf was his kind, and he followed.

 

The landscape changed.  The blank receded grudgingly to shape and color; not much; gray and black, stakes in the distance.  They moved closer, and the stakes became trees.

 

When they came to a Wall, Ghost stopped and hid them.  Men moved about, but they were not vigilant, now with the threat of winters past diminished.  When the gray that marked day from night deepened to black, Ghost and Jon sidled through an unwatched break, undetected.  They followed the wall for a time; later Jon heard the speech of men reverberating off stone, alien and grating.  They veered south again.

 

For twenty-four hours they pushed on.  Something in them picked up, gaining momentum.  Wherever they were going, they were almost there.  They did not slow until they breached the line of a snowy wood.  On the breast of a hill stood a fortress, and Jon knew something for the second time since he awoke in the blinding white and dark, clinging to life.  There.  He should be there.  

 

So he went.

 

***

 

In the dark, space is smaller.  Fears kept at arm's distance in the daytime breath over your shoulder.  The watchmen saw him prowling the walls, looking and moving more beast than man, and the old-wives' tales seized them, whispered:  _skinchanger_.  They shot him down.  When they went to see what they felled, they swore and shouted.  Scraggly, emaciated, scarred with cold but unmistakable: Jon Snow, the once-king in the North.


	2. Chapter 2

 

In the dregs of his consciousness, pain was paramount.  He heard a cry torn from somewhere deep inside him, as though it came from far away.  Vision focused and unfocused.  Human voices pounded in his skull.  Hazy figures moved about in the half-light.  One, red and white, like a weirwood tree.  A soft sound came from it.  Singing.  No, shushing.  But it sounded like music.  A stab of pain jolted through him.  The music caressed his head; no, it was a hand.  Then other, less tender touches held him down, and drove in the pain, and snuffed him out.

 

***

 

Sound was the first sense that returned to him, even before feeling.  Two voices went up and down, but their words eluded meaning.

 

"How bad is it?"

 

"The arrow wound?  Not at all, Your Grace.  Neat.  It will heal cleanly.  But there's something else.  When I examined him I discovered evidence of a head injury.  He doesn't seem to respond to his name, and he appears disorientated."

 

There was a shuffle of fabric and a scrape of stone.  Then the hand on his head again, stroking dampened curls.  His eyes blinked open.

 

The weirwood tree -- no, the woman -- bent over him, speaking quietly.  "Do you know me?"

 

His brow furrowed; the mechanism of his injured mind worked painfully.  "Sansa?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Where am I?"

 

"You're home, Jon.  You're home."

 

***

 

The Sansa and the Ghost were his, that much he knew.  The rest was a blank, like the white wastes he left.  His battered senses delivered information to him in a kaleidoscope, shattered and shifting.  He lay in a big soft bed, in a closed space that smelt of spent wax, woodsmoke, and a trace of wildflowers.

 

Sansa was good; he knew this instinctively, the way one knows it of food; of shelter; of water.  She was gentle but not permissive.  When he tried to feel the stitches in his side, over his left hip, she held his wrist and pressed it down and away, her light squeeze a warning.  She was pitiless when her attendants forced him into a half-sitting position, holding the bowl of broth to his mouth and making him drink.  When the white-bearded man poured some vile liquid into Jon's mouth, she held him down.  The liquid permeated his muscles, immersed him in a drowsy weightlessness.  When he kicked and slid out of bed, finding his legs near collapse beneath him, she grabbed carefully and firmly around his waist and helped him to the chamber pot to relieve himself.  He showed no shyness in this endeavour, and neither did she.  Then she put him back to bed.

 

In tepid daylight, she sat next to him.  Sometimes she sang.  Come nightfall, a servant would enter, to clear away the food and medicines, and set up a cot by the fireside.  Occasionally, she interrupted her vigil to lie down.  But she was always back again, at his side before morning.

 

Then one night, in the shallows of sleep, his awareness grew.  He couldn't hear the puncture of needle through cloth; couldn't smell the drift of dried lavender and faint, sweet sweat on skin.  He sat up and got a real look round him for the first time.  He was in spacious chamber, cold with stone but warmed by fire.  The white direwolf lounged by the door, and he lifted his head when Jon did; snuffed; settled again.  Jon did not pause to take much in because he was looking for one thing: her.  She lay on the cot, with her back to him and her front to the hearth.

 

Jon eased himself out from beneath the furs and blankets, landing on unsteady legs.  Cold licked his bare skin.  He wore very little.  He limped the distance between the bed and cot, where Sansa lay uncovered, fully dressed.  The glow of the flames painted her face flush and orange.   Her breath lulled him.  

 

The primal instinct that kept him alive in the barren waste -- the voiceless knowing -- hungry, _eat_ ; tired, _sleep_ \--  drew him closer.  He lowered himself onto the edge of the cot, onto his good side, flush against her back.  Lifted his thigh to sling over her hip.  Buried his face into the place where her hair met the skin of her neck.  He breathed her in, until his entire body filled with nothing but the smell of her.

 

Beneath him, her limp frame transitioned into frigidity.  He did not know its meaning nor have the mental presence to care.  She didn't move, and warmth flooded him.  He slept.

 

When next he woke, she was gone: the space where her body had been felt cool to him, despite the licking flames.  He lifted himself and looked around, seeking to replace the loss of her, and saw the shining red of her hair around the moon of her face, body curled beneath the furs in the bed.  There were no questions in him, not of why she moved nor why he sought to close the distance.  What he knew he was.  So he got up and limped over.  She woke as he climbed in.

 

"Jon," she breathed.  But she was still.  "What are you doing?"

 

The words settled into some rusted cryptograph in the corners of his memory and supplied an answer.  "Want you."  Like a remark on the weather.

 

Her eyes widened, and the whites gleamed.  "What--what do you  _mean_ you want me?"

 

The effort to understand and build a response strained him.  He wanted sleep.  Sleep and her.  So he grasped her around her middle and dragged her to him beneath the cover.  The pressure of her against his wound hurt momentarily.  But he sucked in his breath and exhaled through his nose, controlling the pain.

 

She pulled back.  "You're being -- you've no idea what you're doing, Jon.  You can't come to bed with me."  She pushed against him, but with little effort, all too conscious of the fragility of his condition.  "Let go now, you're going to pull your stitches."

 

 But he didn't.

 

Still, she moved weakly, and the words kept coming, soft and insistent, and he was tired of them, what was she going on about?  What was the purpose of these noises from her mouth?  They made his brain pound.

 

"Stop talking."

 

A sharp intake of breath; a twitch through her body; a single, hissed word that would have sent any other cowering into a corner.  " _What_?"

 

"Stop talking or--"

 

"Do not speak to me like --"

 

"--I'll bite you."

 

"-- you'll do no such thing!"

 

He followed through on the threat immediately -- going for her mouth, as it was the offender.  He put his own over hers and bit down, firm but measured, with lips and teeth.

 

It worked.  Her speech ceased.  Her mouth, swollen.  Her breath skidded irregularly.  

 

Satisfied at last, Jon threw his thigh over her again and closed his eyes to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part was painstaking to write, but so rewarding! Don't know if this will ever be finished. We've got several days left of the Jonsa festival and I've got to move on.


	3. Chapter 3

When Sansa moved during the night his grip tightened.  The moving didn't bother him.  The escaping did.  Her presence was a place, and his instincts told him,  _go to there_.  But it wasn't possible to go  _there_ if  _there_ wouldn't stay put.

 

Come dawn, the deepest part of sleep cycled through him.  He realised he had let her go when he jolted awake to a loud bang.  His arms were empty; fear sunk into him, and he didn't know who or where he was.  Two men were backing into the door carrying a large, bucket between them.  It sloshed and steamed.  Then Sansa entered, followed by the white-bearded man, and Jon remembered.   _Sansa_.   _Home_.

 

"He's awake!" the old man said.

 

Jon put his palms down and shifted, taking the weight off his sore side.  Now reassured by Sansa's presence, his curiosity led him to observe the two men.  They looked harmless enough.  They hoisted the bucket over the side of the tub in the corner, and water gushed out.  This was an interesting development.

 

"He shouldn't be awake and up like that."  The old man again, lined of face, draped in gray.  "I'll give him more milk of the poppy."

 

Sansa shook her head.  Her auburn hair sat untidily about her face, her dress about her body.  The look she cast at Jon communicated some sort of displeasure, with him, though he was at a loss for what it could be.  "That won't be necessary, Maeser Wolkan.  I believe he's feeling much better now."  She pinned him with her eyes, but Jon wanted to see what the men were doing.  They lifted the now-empty bucket and left the room.

 

"Oh."  The old man looked Jon over, but didn't question her.  "Well.  Then shall I write to the Citadel as you requested?"

 

"Yes, and also--" her voice lowered, "send a raven to King Bran.   _Only_ Bran."

 

_Bran_.  Bran was a word of substance and color, and it danced just outside of Jon's comprehension.

 

"And send another raven north of the Wall, to Tormund Giantsbane."

 

Another spark of near-recognition.

 

"Yes, Your Grace."  He bowed and left.

 

Sansa towered over him now.  He liked that she was tall, and broad-shouldered.  It meant there was more of her.  More of her to hide in, more of her smell.  Though her current voice was a bewildering mix of fond and disapproving.  "Right then.  Now that you're feeling better, you ought to have a bath."  She gestured to the tub of steaming water.  Taking his arm, she helped him to his feet.  "There's things to wash; some clean linen draped on the chair there.  I'll go and fetch some clothes for you.  Take off these things and climb into the bath."

 

Jon ignored the talking, though he knew what she wanted.  For now, her wants coincided with his own, so he indulged her.  He limped to the bath and looked over the lip of the tub.  Steam clouded into his face, and he inhaled.  He felt his lungs expand.

 

"You don't need help, do you?"  Uncertainty danced in the way she said it -- though why would she ask if she didn't want to?

 

Jon stepped carefully into the tub, smallclothes and all, and lowered himself until the steaming water lapped about his waist.

 

Sansa pushed a stuttered syllable from her mouth, then shut it again.  She huffed and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

 

***

 

When she returned, he still sat in the bath, head reclined, eyes closed.  He heard her move about the room.  Then a hand pressed to his bare shoulder, and his view opened to hers.  She was straining to get a look at his wound, and the appearance of it seemed to please her.  Her pleasure diminished abruptly when she backed up to take in the entire state of him.

 

"You haven't washed at all," she said.

 

It wasn't a question, thank the gods for that, so he didn't bother to answer.

 

She gathered a basin and jug and bottle of something scented and went to work on his hair.  He didn't respond in the least to her touch, but kept his head balanced on the rim of the tub.  The flow of water on his roots mesmerised him.  Then her fingers pulled and pressed at his hair, sending tingles into his scalp.  Pleasure became acquainted with him.  It was so unlike any sensation in recent memory.  When she finished his hair she stood and looked down on him.  He gazed back up with loose and liquid eyes.  The drive to live could retreat into its den for the time being.  He was safe.  He was well.  She licked her lips, studying him, and he watched her, openly.  He thought she trembled a little.  But then she knelt, and patted and stroked at his face with a damp cloth.

 

He closed his eyes again and waited for her to do the rest of him.  But after a minute or two, no more touches came, so he peered about for her.

 

She stood, holding up the linen sheet.  "Out now."

 

The cooling water, and the loss of her fingers in his hair, persuaded him to obey.  As he stepped out, she wound the sheet around him tight.  "Your clothes are there," she said.  "Take the wet things off and get dressed.  I'll wait over here."

 

She crossed to the other side of the room and turned her back to him, hands clasped before her in a waiting stance.

 

Jon did as he was told, taking his time.  Holding the chair back for balance, he worked one leg, then another, into soft leather breeches.  The linen tunic was undyed but warm, and bunched at the throat.  This he had to fiddle a bit before he could get his head through the collar.

 

"Finished?"

 

He made a noise in his throat, and she stole a glance over her shoulder.   Satisfied at his state of dress, she came and  helped him with the rest of his clothing: several more layers, stockings, and sturdy pair of boots.  He felt stronger somehow, as if he'd been wrapped in a new skin.  "Come, let's get you something to eat.  And I've had a room prepared for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was inspired, so here's another chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

Powerful smells wafted from the kitchens, making Jon tremble.

 

 Butter.  Baking bread.  Roasting meat.

 

The smells spoke of things good for eating.  He'd had soup before, in the large room; and though it silenced the gurgle in his belly, it did not ignite him this way.

 

He put his hands to a currant loaf -- the closest thing within grabbing distance.  Sansa intercepted immediately, yanking it away before he could shove it in whole and choke.  His growled in protest, but she tugged him along and out, past the tantalising smells, and into a hall.  Light spilled into a corner table, where a plate sat full and waiting for him.  He was on the food that second.

 

"Slow down," Sansa warned.  She nudged him into a seat, but her voice hung in the peripheral.  She kept repeating a single syllable, one frequently on her lips before.  Fingers snapped in his face, severing his attention.  Sansa lowered her hand, her face near his, crossing his line of vision.  "Jon."

 

Jon.  Oh.   _Jon_ was  _him_.   _He_ was Jon.

 

"Do you hear me?  You're going to make yourself sick.  Eat  _slower_."

 

The corner of his mouth twitched up, but kept his chewing pace.

 

Now Sansa nodded, but not in his direction; somewhere over his shoulder.  She bent near again.  "I've got to go.  I've spent days away from court and council, and I can't delay it any longer.  Jon.  Listen to me, Jon.  I'll come for you again before supper.  Then we'll get you set up in your new chamber."

 

His throat thickened; it was difficult to swallow.  Face still tilted downward, he lifted his eyes to hers and scrutinised.  He felt, as much as saw, the heat rise in her cheeks.  Some secondary part of him found the affect pleasing.  For just an instant, uncertainty held solid in the close air between them.  Then Jon let her eyes go and resumed eating.  A long exhale, followed by the echoes of  footsteps walking away across the hall.

 

He ate until he was satisfied and only then did he look around.  A modest hall, columned, cobbled, and raftered, full of long tables lined with chairs.  A cheerful hearth blazed in the wall, between two towers of seasoned logs.  

  
A stout man hovered in the line of his vision.  His posture inclined towards Jon in a telling way, but Jon ignored him.  When he had his fill of looking, he got up and went out.

 

Sounds and smells and colors assaulted him, but they were not unwelcome.  The man followed, hanging behind.  Jon walked slowly, his limp receding.  He stopped often to stare or to touch an object that grabbed his attention: a stone in the wall, the frayed edge of a tapestry.  When he stopped, the man stopped, and Jon inclined his head in a motion meant to communicate his awareness -- and chosen dismissal -- of him.

 

Inside the inner bailey, men in leather armour brandished weapons: arrows, clubs, swords.  Jon knew the nature and use of these things, as he he knew the nature and use of food.  He circled slowly around a pair of archers hitting at targets, watching.  A dagger rested on a nearby barrel.  Jon plucked it up.  The shadow-man shifted but did not intervene.  Jon held the dagger loosely by the hilt, weighing it.  Then he tossed it, and caught it in a subtle twitch of the wrist.  The men at archery paused to watch him now, curious.  But they didn't speak to him.  Jon tucked the dagger into his belt and moved on.

 

Jon spent the rest of the day wandering the halls and towers of that fortress, reacquainting himself with its sheltered corners and sunny alcoves; its songs and secrets.  Sometimes a smell hit him like gong, and images flooded into his brain: children's laughter, the flicker of candlelight, a man's gentle, admonishing voice.  But he could not sustain them for an extended period without a growing ache in his temples; he moved away from them.  

 

Presently, the direwolf joined him, and Jon had two shadows.  Though Ghost was a welcome companion; and when Jon patted his thigh, the wolf trotted up with lolling tongue, and wriggled to be petted.  Jon tossed him about the neck, and put his face into the warm and white, the fur that shielded him from the white of death.

 

The orange sun sunk, casting blue shadows in the courtyard.  Sansa came to him, as she promised.  She exchanged a look with the shadowing man, who bowed and departed.  Then Sansa took Jon and let him into the familiar bedchamber.  There was more food ready for him.  She watched him eat -- ravenous -- and he felt the tip of a question in her gaze.  But she remained silent, and touched no food herself.  This wouldn't do.  So he nudged a plate of something toward her and pointed with his eyes.  She snuffed, but her mouth was gentle.  She took up a knife and ate.  Jon tore a chunk of dripping meat from a bone and fed it to Ghost.

 

After, she brought him to another room.  This one was smaller than the previous bedchamber, but well-furnished with soft things, things he didn't understand but was grateful for.  They chased away the harsh and the cold.  Flames blazed in the hearth.  Night settled its dark skirts in the corners.  There were more clothes items laid out on the bed, and some water and a basin for washing.  He unbuckled his belt, the knife still in it, and hung it over the corner or a table.

 

Sansa let him wander and poke about.  Then he settled on the bed and looked at her expectantly.  She went to him, took his head in her hands, and put her lips to his forehead.  When she drew away, the absence of her mouth burned like a brand on his skin.  "Get some rest."  Her palms on his face seemed to draw the curtain of sleep about him.  "We'll talk tomorrow."

 

***

 

He waited.  The fire crackled and sank low.  He kicked off his boots.  He waited.

 

Where was Sansa?

 

Exasperated by her absence, he opened the door and peered out.  The corridor was quiet, empty, so he stepped out and retraced his steps the way they had come.  Memory soon claimed his muscles, and they moved of their volition.  He found the large, iron-braced door that had shut the chamber he previously inhabited.  On this side, a man was guarding it, bearing some resemblance to the shadow-man of earlier.  But Jon was not interested in observing further.  He walked forward.  The man shifted shift his body, between Jon and the door.  Jon slowed, stopped.  Stared at him without softness.

 

"Her Grace has gone to bed for the evening," the man said.

 

Jon squinted.  Why did people continually feel the need to speak words at him?  He pushed the man aside.  His palm was on the handle when arms closed around his shoulders and pulled back.  Jon yelped.  They struggled, locked in a strange sort of embrace.  In the scuffle, Jon kicked the door, managing to shrug the man off of his back.  

 

The door flew open.

 

Sansa gasped.  " _Jon_!"

 

The man scrambled up, adjusting his armour.  "Apologies, Your Grace, I didn't mean for him to disturb you.  I'll just--"

 

"It's fine," she interrupted, though her voice rang more wary than annoyed.  " _What_ , Jon?"

 

That moment, Ghost sidled in through opening between the door frame and Sansa's body.  The brush of his pelt against her drew gooseflesh, and she looked down at the thin fabric of her shift.  She  _noticed_ Jon notice.  She did a little hop; now the door, that steady nuisance, shielded most of her.  She pursed her lips and scowled at him.

 

Jon dipped his chin, indicating the sweep and direction of the wolf.

 

"You can't sleep here tonight."

 

"Ghost is."

 

"You are not  _Ghost_ , Jon.  You are a man, and you have your own room to sleep in.  Now, if you'll excuse me, it's been a long and tiring day."

 

With a nod to the guard, she closed the door.

 

The man's look hovered between two undecipherable emotions.  Jon wondered if he slapped the man's face if the look would go flying off of it.  But then -- Sansa wouldn't like that.  If she didn't like that, she'd close the door.  Jon wanted the door opened.  He wanted to go in.  But when he tested it, it held fast.

 

The guard man made a noise like a strangled cough.  He seemed hellbent on distracting from Jon's true adversary: the iron-reinforced slab of wood between himself and his Sansa.

 

At last, Jon lowered himself to the chilled floor.  He set his arm beneath his head to pillow it and wrapped the other over his torso, practically on top of the threshold.

 

***

 

He woke to a touch on his shoulder.  Sansa knelt in the opened doorway.  He puffed an exhale, disoriented.  But she stood and jerked her chin for him to come inside.  As he hoisted himself from the floor, he saw her raise a hand in conciliation to the armoured man.  Once they were in, she closed the door once more.  This time he was on the right side.

 

Jon climbed into the large, familiar bed.  He settled underneath the furs onto his uninjured side.  Sansa appeared at the bedside, a substantial robe tied about her body.  She hesitated; then sat, lying herself carefully atop the furs; on her side, facing him.  A body's width remained between them.

 

The dying fire lapped her back, casting her face in shadow.  But the dancing light on his own visage reflected off of him and lit two white sparks in her eyes.  Water rippling in starlight.

 

"Do you remember anything?" she asked.  "From before?"  Fragile as ice in a thaw.

 

"Some things," he said.

 

She paused.  He could hear the want in her, pushing forward.  "What?"

 

"I remember ... sounds ... faces ... a girl -- or woman? -- with a long face and dark hair ... different from but similar to you."

 

"Arya," she breathed.

 

The word hurt him.  He turned onto his stomach and put his face away from her.

 

For a while the lay like that, parted by the gap of a human body.  Then, without turning his face , Jon slung his arm around her and pulled her closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon's perspective is *t e d i o u s* to write and maintain, but I hope it was worth it. Let me know!


	5. Chapter 5

Something woke him.  It was dark.  Night.  Jon surfaced into consciousness from the deeps of sleep.  Feeling replaced weightlessness.  He heard a noise very near in the dark, and his pulse skipped before he remembered: Sansa.  She whimpered in her sleep.  The arm he'd thrown around her draped loosely over her hip.  He lifted it and touched her face.  Her cheek was cold.  So he worked the furs beneath her body until he'd shimmied them out from under her and covered he, settling his arm against her once more.

 

He next woke to a relentless pounding.  Sansa jolted up.  She dodged out of bed and ran to unlatch the door.  The white-haired, gray-draped man stood behind it with two guards and a handmaid.

 

"Your Grace!"

 

The old man's shock prompted Jon to take in Sansa, hair mussed, her robe twisted at an awkward angle around her waist.  "What?  What's happened?"

 

The people on the other side of the door peered hesitantly into the room.  Jon tucked his arms beneath the furs and stared at them.  That seemed to put them off looking.

 

"Uh -- it's -- the handmaid went into Lord Snow's chamber this morning to stoke the fire and he wasn't there.  But she found a knife.  And then, we had word that he'd been stalking outside your bedchamber last night ..."

 

Jon couldn't see Sansa's face; but the old man took on the posture of a scolded child.  "As you can see, Maester Wolkan, I'm perfectly fine.  There's no need to make a scene."

 

The maester looked first left, then right, at the guards attendant on him.  He spoke with a lowered voice: "Forgive me, my Queen, but do you think it is wise to allow him to go about unguarded at nighttime?  He is not himself, and is displaying traits more in keeping with a direwolf than a man.  It is for your safety, alone, that I am concerned."

 

Sansa's voice lowered in reply, but Jon could just hear her words.  "And what am I to do, Maester Wolkan?  Put him in a cage, like an animal?  Abandon him to the brutal cold and wind and let him fend for himself?"  Her volume rose.  "He is the former King in the North, raised as my father's son, and as long as I have breath in my body, he  _will_ be welcome here."  She huffed, stepped backward, and slammed closed the door.

 

She turned, arms crossed over her, and caught him looking.

 

"Oh don't you lie there looking so pleased with yourself!  This sleeping arrangement is only temporary.  I'll have to work something else out in the meantime."

 

Jon's response was to remove his arms from beneath the furs and adjust himself into the pillows.

 

***

 

Sansa went in and out of the room a few times.  She made Jon sit in a chair and took a pair of sewing shears to his hair and beard.  She gathered the clippings and threw them in the fire.  But she held back a single lock and coiled it around her finger.  She wore a look he didn't understand.  She noticed him watch her do this, and she coloured, slammed the curl into a drawer, and stomped about the room for a bit.  Then the men with the sloshy bucket returned.  They filled the tub as before.

 

Jon was eager to get into the water again, to have Sansa's fingers combing and caressing his hair.  He hopped out of the bed and made two strides toward the bath, when Sansa hooked her arm through his and walked him backwards, until he stood just outside the door of the chamber.  He looked a question at her, but she smiled sweetly at him.  "Go back to your chamber.  Get dressed.  Then go down to the kitchen and get your breakfast.  And -- eat what you're  _given_.  Don't  _beg_."  And closed the door on him.

 

He looked down and to his side at Ghost, who tilted his head at Jon in sympathy.

 

***

 

 

After hanging about the kitchen, drawing enough attention to himself and Ghost to get them fed, Jon returned to his/Sansa's bedchamber and was let in without resistance.  Sansa was mostly dressed, but the skin of her neck and lower arms were exposed, rubbed rosy and soft-looking from soaking.  The scent of herbs and dried flowers drifted off of her.  Jon stepped in and put his face into the seam where her neck and jaw met.  She shivered.  Jumped sideways, putting space between them.  Glared.  "Don't  _do_ that."  Well.  If she didn't want to be nuzzled, why'd she smell like an invitation?

 

Jon didn't want to let Sansa out of his sight, so she showed him the council room where she would be, the chair she'd sit in, and promised him they would eat supper together as they had the night before come day's end.  Jon determined that being shut in a stuffy room with a bunch of stale-smelling bodies didn't appeal to him; he clicked his tongue for Ghost to heel and they went about their own business.  The shadow-man followed them the whole time, as before.  Jon spent a much longer time in the training yard watching the younglings spar.  It was strange to him, the fighting without fighting.  Survival was still so fresh, so foremost in his mind.  He wandered back to the kitchens for more food come noon, then he and Ghost spent a leisurely afternoon in the godswood.

 

When the sun started to sink, he made his way back to the keep.  True to her word, Sansa tracked him down, and they went to her chamber to eat.  She asked him questions, spaced apart, and he answered when he could.  Some of them were easy things, like, "Do you like the ale?" and "How is your side feeling?"  Others were trickier.  "Do you remember going south to Dragonstone?  Do you remember the wight walkers?"  And, "Why are you so attached to me?" 

 

To this last question, he levelled his gaze and frowned.  Attached -- wanting to be near -- what was there to know?  She was Sansa, and Sansa went with Jon, the same as Ghost.   _Pack_.

 

When it was time for them to retire, servants set up a cot by the fire, as there had been while he convalesced.  Sansa explained to him that he could sleep there for now, and then went behind a screen to shed her excess clothing, coming out and climbing into the large inviting bed.  Jon looked at the narrow cot by the fire.  He clambered onto the bed's mattress instead.

 

Sansa's mouth fell open.  But she recovered herself.  "Fine.  You have the bed, then."  She got out and started to climb into the cot.  While she was still on one knee, Jon threw a pillow at her head.  He red hair went smudged and spindly.  She turned around slowly.  Looked at him with dangerous eyes.

 

"With me," he ordered.

 

She kept her eyes locked on his as she lowered herself onto the cot and laid down.

 

This wouldn't do.  Jon kicked out of bed, stalked over to her; grabbed her around the waist, lifting, and threw her over his shoulder.  She yelped.  But Jon dropped her onto her side of the bed and climbed over her, settling on the other.  She sat up straight, pulling the creeping hem of her shift back down over her knees.  "Jon.  This is  _not_ appropriate.  You --  _wouldn't_ approve; not if you were yourself!"

 

Ghost's nails clicked on the cobbles.  He leapt, landing on the cot by the fire with a broad yawn.

 

Sansa's head swivelled, from Ghost to Jon, to Ghost, to Jon.  She was making the face again, the face that tried to pin him down and make him feel ... what?  He'd no way of knowing.  At a loss, Jon opted to pat the face with his open hand and dropped back into the pillows, his body already heavy with sleep.

 

"Jon."  She lowered herself as well, her movements taut and guarded.

 

"You like that word," he said, eyes sinking closed.

 

"What word?"

 

"Jon."

 

He thought perhaps he'd stunned her into silence.  He didn't even have to bite her this time.

 

Then she said, quietly: "Jon is your name.  Jon Snow."

 

He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her.  She looked back, and he thought,  _her eyes are snowdrifts_ , and he thought he could sink into them and sleep forever.

 

She tucked an arm under her head.  "You were raised by Eddard Stark at Winterfell, as his own son, alongside his trueborn sons and daughters.  You went north to the Wall because you believed you were a bastard, with no prospects and no one to love you. 

 

"But you were wrong ... so very wrong."  

 

A subtle pain in his mind warned him away from her words; but then, the way she spoke to him seized his attention and simultaneously soothed him.  He rolled to his side so they faced each other, inverse spoons.  He put the customary arm around her waist and watched her.  Her eyes seemed to search the dark for something -- he could only guess.  She was strange.  But she was his.

 

"I'm glad you're home," she whispered.

 

He considered her words.  They were all good things, yes.   _Glad_.   _Home_.  Tied up and tangled with Sansa.  Stay with these words, he thought.  Keep away from the ones that make me pained, and you sad.

 

"I like it, too," he said.

 

"What?"

 

"The word.  My name.  I like when you say it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've only a vague idea where I'm going with this. Leave me a comment?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're all comfortable with the biological fact that women have menstrual cycles, good? Good.

Jon broke out of sleep as through a layer of ice, gasping for air.  He'd dreamt something, something bad, so bad his consciousness would not recapture it.  In the warmth of the bed, he had Sansa curled into him, with her back to his chest, hair on his mouth.  Sunlight trickled in like honey.  She smelled of rose water and other, subtle things that had no name.  He moved his arm around her and felt wet.  He lifted his hand to examine it, his palm rusty with a sheen of blood.

 

 He leapt nearly on top of her, turning her -- causing her eyes to shock open with a gasping breath.

 

"Where are you hurt?  Where?"

 

His hands invaded her, searching.  She paled, but he couldn't register her fear above his own.

 

As he flung the furs and covers from them, Sansa's pallid shade burned into pink.  She pushed against him with unexpected strength, stumbling out of the bed.  She barely landed on her feet.  Where she stood, she wavered.  Jon was up immediately.  He reached to grasp her around her waist, but she shoved away his hands with her own.

 

"It's not --  _Jon_ \-- I'm not --  _hurt_."  Her words between gasps.

 

Jon gripped her wrists even as she tried to intercept and waylay him.

 

"There's blood!"

 

"It's -- my moonblood -- I didn't --  _oh_."

 

He looked down, to where his hands smudged red on her wrists.

 

"You  _know_." What was this?  Why was she pleading?  She sounded almost ...  _ashamed_.  "A woman's -- ?"

 

He dropped her wrists with a frown; the knowledge distant but present in him.  Women bled every month, once a month: their very own wound.

 

Unconvinced, he reached for her again.  "Let me see."  His fingers bunched at the fabric of her shift.  She shrieked.

 

" _NO_!"

 

***

 

Her almighty scream brought the guards running.  The guards shared the same irrationality as Sansa.  They cursed and fell over each other and their arms and legs went completely useless.  Fortunately, the handmaidens were not far behind, and they shooed them away, while Jon rinsed his hands in last's night's wash bowl.  He was not permitted to stay.  As the servants stripped the bed, he was deposited unceremoniously outside of the chamber door, hardly wearing anything at all.  So he made his way back to the unwanted chamber where Sansa kept his clothes.

 

***

 

Jon was able to lift something savoury from the kitchen and slink away before the shadow-man could locate him and attach himself.  He climbed the ramparts, while snow floated, and found a place to sit and eat in peace, his cloak wrapped around him like the wings of a bird.  From high, he could see the landscape, and though it was white and and hostile, it was nothing near as desolate as the frozen womb in which he woke and was born, with only Ghost to greet him.   He shifted to face the direction of his origin.  North.  That was a word swollen with meaning.

 

Something dark detached itself from a crevice in the landscape.  It shot across the white, following the dark scar that was the road.  Jon peered through the snow.  A horse.  And some shapeless furry thing on top.  As he watched, Jon heard the sound of a horn, from within Winterfell.  It was not an alarmed sound, not one of danger, but Jon nevertheless climbed down from the ramparts to see what the commotion was about.

 

His trajectory deposited him in the outer yard, just as Sansa emerged from the other side.  The gates hauled open, and the rider came in, pulling his horse to a halt and jumping off in consecutive hurry.  The sheltered furs fell away from the rider's face, revealing an immense ginger beard.

 

Jon halted.  The man's eyes landed on him, wide with recognition.  Jon's brain shifted and clicked into place.  He launched himself toward the big man; cut off Sansa; she step backward to keep her balance.  The big man braced himself.  Jon leapt into the air.  And landed on him with arms and legs, as the big man caught him, falling backward and booming with laughter.

 

Sansa started with the panicked talking, as the man -- Tormund, that was his name -- wrestled with Jon and laughed and tousled him like a dog with its whelp.  Tormund was good, definitely good.

 

"Jon -- get up!  You're going to exacerbate your injury -- Jon!"

 

Tormund easily knocked Jon off of him and clambered up from the ground, tossing his arms open toward Sansa.  " _Queen in the North_!"  Jon watched, still sprawled on the ground.  For a moment, Jon was sure Tormund would be at the mercy of Sansa's tongue.  Her worry-stricken face softened.  Then she responded to Tormund's open arms with a dignified embrace.  She was no waif but Tormund's body surrounded and nearly disappeared her.  He laughed some more as she extracted her limbs from him and tried to salvage her mussed hair.

 

"Thank you for coming."

 

"When I got the raven, I raided a horse from Castle Black and rode as hard and fast as I could, all night.  I feared he might be dead.  Especially -- " he reached back to the horse, pulling something long and thin from the rolls and packs on the saddle.  " -- after this was found by rangers."

 

A longsword, Jon knew, magnificent even it its sheath.  The wolf's head, white and red like a weirwood.

 

Jon scrambled up from the ground and reached, but Sansa snatched it first, passing it deftly to a nearby guard who took it away at once across the courtyard.  Jon made to go after but Sansa intervened, pressing a gloved hand to his chest.  "It's safe Jon, I promise.  Trust me, all right?"  He scowled at the back of the man who made off with what Jon knew was his -- but he looked back at Sansa, who nodded at him, eyebrows lifted, opening her face like a flower to the rain.  He didn't understand, why he couldn't have the sword.  But he understood this -- her seeing, probing eyes, looking for a hurt on him she couldn't heal.

 

***

 

After a confusion of bodies and a clamber of words, they relocated  inside the castle, to the far end of the hall nearest the fireside.  Servants brought food and drink, and Tormund partook heartily.  As did Jon.  He sat at the far end of the table, with Ghost, while Sansa and Tormund sat at the other end, turning their cups in their hands and speaking closely.  Jon felt pleased; easy, content.  He liked them all together like this, in the safe and warm.

 

"He knew my name," Sansa said.  "He knew Ghost.  He knew to come to Winterfell."

 

Tormund tilted his head toward Jon, who gulped from a cup.  "His speech is normal.  He was never much of a talker.  And he recognises all the tools of civilisation -- at least the useful ones -- and how to use them.  You'd think the little crow was born with a sword in his hand."  Jon coughed and dragged an arm across his mouth.  "His personality is certainly unaffected."

 

"But his memories seem to be absent, Tormund.  He can't answer when I ask him about what happened before.  So much of who a person is, what makes up a personality, is one's experiences.  I ... miss him."  The last two words sunk low, and went unnoticed by the ginger-beard man.

 

"I've seen things like this before," he replied.  "Rarely.  When a man wanders north of north.  But usually it's after years of exposure to the white waste, no human interaction to be had, and Jon has been gone from our camp for less than two moons."

 

Sansa absorbed this.  "The maester said there were signs of a head injury."

 

Tormund sucked meat from a bone and smacked his lips.  "That would do it."

 

"Do you think ... do these men ever recover?"

 

"Aye, they can.  With time.  And the right attention."  He raised his brows pointedly toward Sansa.

 

She glanced down the table toward Jon who looked right back.

 

Her eyes dropped under his steady consideration.  When they came up again they went to Tormund, not him.  "And?  If he doesn't?  Can we keep him safe like this?  Safe and accepted?  He seems to be overly ...  _attached_... to me.  For lack of a better word."  She did not elaborate but brought her cup to her lips to drink.

 

Tormund rolled his eyes to her.  "And?  Why wouldn't he be?  You're his woman."

 

Sansa choked.  Her hand flew up to her mouth to hide the evidence.  Hoarse: "I am  _not_.  His  _woman_."

 

Tormund paused mid-chew.  "Aye.  And I'm a maid of six and ten."

 

She set down her cup firmly.  "I'm family to him; a sister, that's all.  His woman is ... was ..." she trailed off, but her eyes spoke and Tormund understood where Jon did not.

 

"What man doesn't wander from time to time where his cock is concerned?"

 

Jon didn't have a clear sight of Sansa's face, but he could read the heated protest steaming off of her.

 

Tormund was not as dumb as he looked, however; he sensed his fragile ground and added, "If he's resigned to a beating from his wife, that is."

 

***

 

Tormund successfully rejected the shadow-man by reassuring Sansa he would look after Jon.

 

"He's naught but a little thing, how hard can it be?  Besides, he seems not to want to wander very far at all.  Come on, Snow, let us go into town for a drink and a leer."  He hit him on the back, nearly knocking him down.

 

Jon uprighted himself.  "And Sansa, too?"

 

Sansa clasped her hands in front of her and gave him the bewilderingly disapproving smile.  What exactly was her objective in this?  Even if he could intuit the kind of behaviour or reaction she wished, he would do what he wanted, as long as it kept his pack together.  He resolved to make this more clear from now on.  Later.  When she wasn't looking so formidable.

 

" _Sansa_ has things she must do here."

 

Jon considered this and decided as long as she remained in Winterfell, and could be found in the bedchamber come the end of the day, he was comfortable leaving her to her own devices.  Now, Tormund.  Tormund was a wild card and couldn't be trusted to secure himself.  Jon weighed his options and determined Tormund was the more in need of herding.  And besides, with Sansa bleeding, he wasn't sure if he liked her traipsing all over the countryside, natural or no.

 

So Jon turned on his heel, angling his chin to direct Tormund toward the hall's exit.  "Sansa will stay.  We'll go."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean. I like ellipses. What can I say.


End file.
